Greece: the sequel (this time with even more tourists)
Holiday sector hits all-time high as nation savaged by austerity reinvents itself

Helena Smith    
Tuesday 25 June 2013

The Greek island of Mykonos is expecting 1 million tourists during the summer as yacht owners and cruise ship passengers make up a much bigger proportion of visitors to Greece.
Long before the setting sun turns the sky above Mykonos into a blaze of crimson, they begin to arrive: super-yachts and pleasure boats and high-speed craft all vying for a spot in the Aegean isle's picturesque old port.

In his aviator sunglasses, Mykonos's harbourmaster, Lieutenant Jr Nicholaos Zigouris, supervises this elegant race for space.

"It wasn't like this last year or the year before," he says. "There's been a huge leap in the number of private and professional boats sailing in, and the tourist season has barely begun."

Mykonos, the island made famous by Jackie Onassis, is braced to accept 1 million tourists this summer but it is not only the international jet-set descending on its shores.

The island's economy may be in freefall, its people hit by the harshest peacetime austerity programme ever imposed on an advanced western state, but Greece is back in business.